– what is better : a round-trip or to a point in town and back the same way

– how to take land use (red/yellow/blue/green) in considaration?

– how to take land value in considaration (bright versus dark colors)

– what spacing between stops?

– how many stops on one line?

– should all lines start/end near the railway station?

– how many lines in a town?

– how many vehicles on a line?

– Point to Point is good between towns, but within one a round trip is better it seems.

– Ideally a city line should encompass all land use types, but i found that over long time the industry seems to be not getting many passengers.

– After you set up the train lines between cities the most profitable intracity routes are those that connect residential to the train station and return through commercial (as above the industrial connections do not seem to be getting many people).

– Actually the spaces between the stops can be medium to long (like two intersections) and you should put stops close to pedestrian crossings.

– Up until 1930-ish the Trams are better, but afterwards they fall short of buses.

– Number of stops depends on area you need to cover. There should be as many vehicles on the line so that the travel/wait time is low enough for people to use it.

– I usually start with one line circling in the city and based on how the city grows i either modify the line or add more. Usually both. Do not forget to add some streets where needed. Also, all my lane-carrying streets i modify to the widest possible so that i can achieve highest speed.

– I usually carry my lines through railway station, yes. I do not know if that is the best thing to do, but i noticed that far into the game the intra-city traffic becomes less dependent on your lines because people are simply getting cars.

– Also, far into the game the bus stations (bot medium and large) lose their appeal. As they are capped at 27 and 30 respectively per line, if you train drops 200 people then you may lose as many as 85% of them. Normal bus stops are capped depending on how much space on the sidewalk there is. So if you have several lines, assign each of them a different stop and group the stops together. Alternatively get a VERY large bus station mod, which can handle perhaps more than a hundred people. That’s what i do for my intercity bus connections, but it is very big and it only has one stop so the busses can clog the place. This is not very handy close to the rail stations.

-what is better : a round-trip or to a point in town and back the same way

I usually make use of point to point running through the center of the town (covering 2 or 3 zones) to the station. Than I make a second line to cover the missed out zones. I usually get 80+ line usage. It all depends upon the town structure. In some towns I have a successful circular lines

– how to take land use (red/yellow/blue/green) in considaration?

People travel from one zone to another. There is no specific destination. As long as your zones are connected effeciently, people will use your lines

– how to take land value in considaration (bright versus dark colors)

I usually place stops at the end of intersection, near bright areas to get maximum passenger. However, in the future, you will want to place stops near darker zones as well, in order to develop them

– what spacing between stops?

Depends upon how long is the road intersection and road network. Placing stops where various roads meet is a good idea. Avoid placing more than one stop in a single intersection provided that it is not toooo long.

– how many stops on one line?

Depends upon the size of the town

– should all lines start/end near the railway station?

No

– how many lines in a town?

I usually have 3 lines (1st is profitable, 2nd is profitable but little 3rd is break even or loss

– how many vehicles on a line?

Depends upon the line lenght, maintaining a correct frequency lets say 30 to 60 seconds is more important.

I hope this was helpful

thnx

City-to-City trafic is a key to get money. So i use local lines as a feeder to the long lines only. My local lines end on the long range station. Therfore I make local line as forth and back, never circular. I need to transfer people from their location to the long travel port. If they need to go buy a bread to their local shop, I dont care. If they need to buy a bread in the shop on the other side of map, well, thats interesting. 🙂

1. |The line should not overlap with another line. If a transfer is required, build two stops as close together as possible or use a bus/tram station. This avoids congestion.

2. Keep frequency under 60 seconds. On some routes, this requires 20 or more horse trams/stagecoaches. Keeping such a low arrival time will ensure that just about everyone will choose public transport over walking.

3. The line should include at least 1 intercity transfer stop. If it does not, then it needs to have 2 or more land use zones within the stops.

Most of my lines start at the center of the city and move to the outskirts. This means most lines have the commercial zone included along with at least 1 more zone. Most of the lines also end at a station that delivers traffic to another city.

Well .. the benefit is that is easier when you need to replace vehicles… don’t know about efficiency thou.

In the past I created 2-3 lines going from train station to various directions and back. Now I create only one line which goes first into one direction, then back to station, then to another and back and so on.

Anyone tried to avoid using intercity lines? Someone in one post claimed that he setup bus/tram line only on his main city. The rest was without them and all worked just fine … ?

1 – Gaining money – Circular route are quite efficient, minimal upkeep and working fine until automobile cloggs up all streets. Frequent stops are fine, but do not overdo.

2 – Get them to the station – radial straight lines from the station to strategic points in town work best. Key is fast travel from those key points to station without delay. Just a very few stops on the line are enough. the goal is to get as many people as fast as possible to the trains, so they can travel farther, and thus make more money with trains.

Combining both strategies is fine, and will do well until automobile takes over.

But the big money bringers are the town to town lines. Place one stop in each town centre, and setup up a bus (or tram) line between the two stops. Guaranteed big profits, even with stage coaches in the early game. I use typically 20 stage coaches per city-to-city line, and make 100K to 300K per year per line. Easy win.